Durlacher, the perfect artist,
as Jack had called her--she laughed unfeelingly when that phrase came
back to her mind--with herself at the woman's heels, telling her what
they did with this room and how in the hunting season they used that,
there would be little scope for exhibition of the proprietary
sentiment and, whoever the person might be, Mrs. Durlacher
guaranteed she should not shine on that occasion before her brother.
For that day, then, she had cancelled all her engagements. The
opening of the bazaar, a function at which she had felt it her duty
to be present, she crossed out of her book. From the dinner, to which
she and her husband had been asked on the evening previous to Traill's
visit to Apsley, she wrote and excused herself, saying she had been
called out of Town; and on the next morning she had ordered the car
to be round at the house in Sloane Street punctually at a quarter
to ten.
"Can't see why you have to give up the dinner and drive me out of
it as well because you have to go down to Apsley to-morrow," her
husband had said when she had written to her hostess excusing their
presence at dinner.
"The reason's obvious," she replied equably.
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